


Tidying up with Emma Swan

by HelveticaBrown



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, cw: references to emotional abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 10:38:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17681861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelveticaBrown/pseuds/HelveticaBrown
Summary: When Emma watches an episode of Marie Kondo, it leads her to a revelation she wasn't quite expecting.Set in a post-season 6 kind of universe that ignores the existence of season 7.





	Tidying up with Emma Swan

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this piece came from, but here it is, it exists. 
> 
> Fair warning, if you don't like fic with Hook in it, this may not be the story for you. I promise he's not exactly treated kindly, but his existence in this fic is an incontrovertible fact and it assumes that CS happened.

* * *

It began as a vague itch in her brain, a kind of formless niggle that was driving her towards something she couldn’t quite put her finger on yet. She paced the living room, worrying away at the undefined problem, seemingly no closer to an answer. She sat down on the sofa and opened up Netflix, hoping to find some kind of distraction at least for a little while.

She scrolled endlessly through Netflix’s menus, starting and quitting multiple shows, not quite sure what she wanted to watch. Finally, finally she managed to settle on something and she felt her brain quiet a little.

_Does this spark joy?_

The words felt like a key turning in a lock.

She’d never had much. Even when she was earning enough for her own apartment, she’d still been able to fit all of her worldly possessions into the not particularly generous trunk of the bug. Since she’d come to Storybrooke, though, her life had become far more complicated, far more cluttered. That must be it.

She decided to get straight to work.

*****

Henry was concerned. Mostly for his mother’s sanity, but also for his Xbox. Okay, mostly for his Xbox. Ma would be alright, she always was, but his poor, innocent Xbox was defenceless and he still hadn’t finished Red Dead Redemption 2.

There was a crash; when he poked his head out the door, Ma was emptying out yet another cupboard, this time dangerously close to his bedroom. He picked up his phone; it was time to call in the cavalry.

“Hey Mom. I’m worried about Ma. Ever since she watched Marie Kondo she’s been acting kind of weird.”

*****

Regina took in the scene in front of her: Emma, a whirlwind of activity, the house looking like a Chernabog had decided to nest in it and Henry acting as a human shield in front of his own bedroom door.

“Mom, help! I think she’s been possessed.”

Regina considered this; in Storybrooke, almost anything was possible. She studied Emma for a long moment, until she was almost satisfied that Emma was still herself.

“Do you need any help, Emma?”

Emma snapped out of her decluttering haze for long enough to give her a crooked smile that seemed more like her than Regina remembered seeing her in a long time. “I’ve got this under control.”

“Mom?”

“It’s going to be alright, Henry. In my experience, it’s best just to ride these things out.”

“What about my Xbox?”

“I’d suggest you hide it. I know how resourceful you are.”

The look in Emma’s eyes was one she recognised, one that she remembered bearing herself once. Regina sat down, deciding to make herself comfortable while she waited out the storm. She had a feeling she might be needed to help with the clean-up effort.

*****

Emma surveyed her handiwork. There was a truly impressive pile of stuff accruing by the front door: clothes, books her mother had given her that she had no intention of reading, six half-empty bottles of rum, a ship in a bottle, a dress. _The_ dress – Emma shook her head – the dress she’d chosen in a moment of madness, a moment that she couldn’t even begin to understand, looking back on it.

There was still something missing, though. She prowled around the house, opening doors, peering into cupboards, not yet satisfied with her efforts. She walked up to the pile of stuff, glaring at it as if an answer would somehow materialise.

She was startled from her intent contemplation by the sound of the front door being unlocked.

“Emma, what are you doing?” Killian asked when he stepped through the door. She could smell the rum on his breath and she turned her head away from him, searching for clear air.

“I’m decluttering,” Emma said, frowning as she tried to figure out the missing piece of the puzzle. She felt so close to working it out.

“Did you have to declutter my favourite pair of boots, my leather jacket, my _sword_?” he asked, increasingly strident, but she barely heard him.

There was that feeling again, of a door opening, of light streaming in. “Does this spark joy?” she said to herself.

“What?”

She looked at Killian who was standing there fuming, really looked at him for the first time in a long time, and that itch in her brain finally settled.

“Does this spark joy?” she said, louder this time.

She gripped the ring on her finger, twisted it once, twice and then off and tossed it on to the pile. It could hardly have weighed more than a quarter of an ounce, but her hand felt like it had been released from under a giant weight.

She wiggled her newly-freed hand experimentally, peering at it as if she didn’t quite recognise it. There was a surge of magic through her fingers, one that she didn’t quite consciously channel, a muffled thump and an indignant noise.

When she looked up, Killian was lying in the pile of stuff, a pair of socks he’d once tried to get her to mend draped over his head.

“What the hell, Emma?” He grabbed at the socks, balled them up and threw them at her.

She waved her hand and the socks disappeared, mid-flight.

She took a few steps towards him, reached out and stopped, her hand inches away from his arm, hovering there for a long moment. She stepped back; she couldn’t bring herself to touch him, not ever again.

“I’m supposed to thank you, but I can’t.”

“Emma?”

“I can’t,” she said. She waved her hand again, and this time _he_ was gone.

*****

Regina listened to the sound of Hook and Emma’s voices and then the silence. She felt the surge of magic, recognised it for what it was. She’d always been attuned to Emma’s magic, somehow, and she could feel the emotion driving it right now. It was deeply, intimately familiar, a mirror of things she had once felt.

Moments later, Emma walked into the living room, almost zombie-like, and collapsed onto the sofa beside her.

“I made tea,” Regina offered.

Emma stared uncomprehendingly at her for a moment before reaching out and taking the mug from the coffee table.

She held the mug, not drinking, her stare fixed on the blank television screen. After a while, she finally spoke, her voice soft and distracted. “What have I done?”

Regina recognised it as a question not meant for her, so she waited, silent, patient until Emma was ready to talk.

“I know what this must look like,” Emma eventually said. “Do you think I’ve lost my mind?”

“No,” Regina said softly, “I think maybe you’ve found yourself again.”

She reached out tentatively, rested her hand on Emma’s knee. She intended the contact to be brief – Regina had always been tactile, but Emma was the one person she didn’t touch – anything more seemed like a risk she didn’t dare to take. But Emma, it seemed, had other ideas, and she found her hand held in place by one of Emma’s.

“Maybe.”

“Are you alright?” she asked, even though it was a ridiculous question under the circumstances.

“I think so. Or I think I will be.”

“You will be,” Regina said fiercely, as if the strength of her belief could make it so.

“I hope so,” Emma said, finally taking a sip of her tea. “I didn’t realise how much of my air, how much of my space he was taking up, until suddenly I did. He took up so much space and over time I found that I was carving away little pieces of myself, just so he could fit. It was never enough, though.”

“It never is,” Regina said, and for a moment she was back in a gilded cage, a world and a lifetime away. “I burned everything I could find after Leopold died. There was smoke in the air for days.”

“Did it help?”

Regina smiled ruefully. “For a little while, perhaps. But my story is not yours. I’m not sure anyone or anything _could_ have helped me at that point.”

“But you found a way back.”

“I found a way forward. Eventually. I spent far too long looking backwards, not realising there was nothing there to get back to.”

Emma seemed to contemplate this for a moment. “I don’t think I was ever happy with him. Not really. I kept trying to get back to a place where we were both happy, kept telling myself it would get better if I did, but I never found it. It was just a lie I kept telling myself, because I was supposed to be happy. It doesn’t matter, though. He’s gone now.”

“Where did you send him, anyway?” Regina had felt the physical shift as Hook had disappeared, but she didn’t know where he’d gone from there.

“I’m not sure,” Emma said, screwing her eyes shut. “I think I might have sent him and all his stuff to the convent charity shop.”

“The nuns might get a bit of surprise. I’m not sure they’ll get much for him or his stuff,” Regina said, as diplomatically as she could manage. What she really wanted to say was she hoped he’d landed in an active volcano, or at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, or somewhere equally hospitable.

She looked down at Emma’s hand resting on her own. She could see the faint white band of skin where Emma’s wedding ring had been. She’d hated seeing it there, for a multitude of reasons. A small part of it had been disappointment at what it meant for them, at the door (only open a little way) that had been violently slammed shut. There had been a moment where it had seemed like there could be more between them, the shadow of a possibility. Mostly, though, she’d hated seeing how Emma had seemed to shrink in on herself, bound and weighed down by Hook’s presence.

Emma rubbed irritably at it, as if she’d heard Regina’s thoughts.

“I need some time to be myself again.”

Regina was suddenly all too conscious that Emma hadn’t invited her to be here and her presence was almost certainly unwelcome at this moment. “Of course. I’ll leave you to it.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

“It’s alright, Emma.” She tried to stand up, but Emma’s hand tightened around her own, holding her where she was.

“He didn’t like you, you know,” Emma said. “He didn’t like you, so you were one of the pieces I cut away.”

“I know.” She’d felt Emma’s absence keenly, not just for what she could have been, but for what she had been: a friend, when Regina had few enough of those already.

“Or at least, I tried to. I never could let go entirely.” This time, Emma was the one to stand up and Regina let herself be drawn with her. “Regina, I need some time to put all my pieces back together, but when I’m done, can we maybe get a drink or something?”

Regina looked down at their hands joined like a promise. “I’d like that.” She smiled, and when she looked up, she was met with one twice as bright in return. “When you’re ready, I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Confession: I haven't actually watched Tidying Up, mostly because I'm concerned that if I do, I'll die buried under an avalanche of text books I haven't opened in 15 years and a dozen or so picnic sets (because everyone gives my girlfriend and I picnic sets for Christmas, like we don't have a house to eat in). Despite this, through her omnipresence, Marie Kondo has somehow managed to wiggle her way both into my brain and my fic.


End file.
